Undiplomatic Blix gives critics a serve

Hans Blix has lashed out at the "bastards" who tried to undermine him during his three years as UN chief weapons inspector.

In a departure from his usual diplomatic language, Dr Blix assailed his critics in Washington and Iraq.

Dr Blix said: "I have my detractors in Washington. There are bastards who spread things around, of course, who planted nasty things in the media. Not that I cared very much.

"It was like a mosquito bite in the evening that is there in the morning, an irritant."

In an interview with the Guardian, Dr Blix, who will retire in three weeks, accused:");document.write("

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The Bush Administration of leaning on his inspectors to produce damning language in their reports.

Some elements of the Pentagon of being behind a smear campaign against him.

Washington of regarding the UN as an alien power, which they hoped would sink into the East River.

Asked if he believed he had been the target of a smear campaign, he said: "Yes, I probably was at a lower level."

Before he had flown to Iraq in November to relaunch sensitive weapons inspections after a four-year gap, senior US Defence Department officials were saying he was the worst choice.

Later Dr Blix, a married father of two, was being branded in Baghdad as a "homosexual who went to Washington every two weeks to pick up instructions".

Dr Blix said that much of the sniping came from the Pentagon. "By and large my relations with the US were good," he said, reiterating his belief that Iraq was never likely to have complied with any of the UN disarmament resolutions had it not been for the 200,000 US soldiers in the area.

"But towards the end the (Bush) Administration leaned on us," he said.

Washington was particularly upset that the UN team had not made more of the cluster bombs and drones found in March.

Its disappointment at not getting UN backing for an attack was a reason for scepticism towards inspectors.

Instead of seeing the UN as a collective body of decision-making states, Washington now viewed it as an alien power, even if it did hold considerable influence within it. "Such (negative) feelings don't exist in Europe, where people say that the UN is a lot of talk at dinners and fluffy stuff," he said.